Someone recently told me they don’t let their dogs on the furniture! I know! Our dogs not only get on the furniture, they pretty much make the rules of the house!
Marc and I each had a dog from the start and we shared the belief that dogs are family. I’m so thankful we agreed on that because if we didn’t, well, we won’t discuss what might have happened (to Marc). We’re both pretty kicked back about our dogs. They definitely are allowed on the furniture. In fact, they get on the sofa, the beds, Parker sits on the kitchen chair, and ok wait. Let me take a step back here. Our house is clean, I swear. So anyway, our dogs may seem like they run our house and our lives but in reality they really do. They stay in the house, they lay on our pillows and sleep in our closet. Some people may say that I cross the line a little bit with the whole dogs = family thing because of certain situations. For instance, right now Shelby gets eye drops and an eye wash daily. She’s a little dog which equals little legs. I have a crappy back. This adds up to Shelby on the counter once per day for eye care. I’m ok with her on the counter. I mean it’s not like I want the dogs on the counter. I don’t put their food up there for dinner or anything. I just mean, with something like eye drops and a mini dog then yes, the dog can be on the counter.
To fully understand the total control our dogs have over me, you need to know that I despise clutter. Whether it’s the floor, rooms, closets, counters, yard, patio, garage, tables, (you get the picture); it drives me insane. With that said, I’m sitting here and I look around, (just to reassure myself that we don’t run the house) and the only clutter that exists is the dogs’ clutter. I’m as shocked as you are! There’s a dog pen that gets used for feeding two dogs. There’s a large dog bed that is often tripped over. There are more toys on the floor than my children ever had. On our, not oversized, L-shaped sofa there are currently four dogs and I have actually made room for them. On the kitchen counter there is a basket of medication. Not Marc’s, not mine, yes-the dogs’. There’s allergy medicine, eye drops, saline, ear wash, ear drops, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, thyroid medication, prescription ear drops, Prozac (for the dog, seriously), Bean-o (for the dogs, seriously), and Pepto-Bismol (you guessed it, for the dogs, seriously).
We have nice but not expensive furniture in our house. We don’t do fancy and we don’t do designer (shocking, I know). There’s a lot of reasons we have never considered buying more expensive furniture. No, not because the dogs won’t let us! One reason is that I’m sitting here with my feet on a coffee table that has a chewed corner. But, here’s a tip: Brown Sharpie covers the wood and makes it much harder to notice. See, they help me learn things. The recliner has a spot on one foot that Ryder got but again, Sharpies work wonders. There’s an area on the wall where Jax ate at the drywall and the baseboard. It’s now worse than it was because Ryder decided to work on it too. At this point you might be wondering how it’s possible to not care about the wall and the wood. That’s not the case though. I very much care about the wall. I also care about the wood but here’s the thing. We have a beautiful kitchen table and chairs and there’s so many nicks in the wood, all of which are from people. I’m not going to freak out about it though. People happen, dogs happen, #@%& happens. It’s not like I’m going to put peanut butter on the furniture so the dogs eat it. We correct them when we see things. I’m not going to stress my life away because Ryder chewed on my $20 coffee table.
Obviously we are nothing like the people who keep their dogs off furniture. For us, our dogs are family. They’re with me on good days like my family. They help me through bad days like my family. They love me no matter what like my family. They make me laugh out loud like my family. They drive me crazy like my family and love me even when I drive them crazy, which of course is not often, like my family. Our dogs (and our family) are the biggest part of our lives and we’d never tell any of them to stay off the furniture.
Talk soon,
pv
